December 31
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Featured Event
© Alexi Rosenfeld/Getty Images
The first ball was dropped at Times Square in New York City to celebrate New Year’s Eve on this day in 1907. Made of iron and covered in lightbulbs, the ball was so heavy that it had to be wrangled by six men. It established a tradition that continues today. [Read today’s edition of Today in History >>]
Featured Biography
Featured Biography
Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Welsh actor Anthony Hopkins, a performer of tremendous intensity born this day in 1937, is best remembered for his Academy Award-winning role as demented serial killer Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs (1991).
Famous Birthdays
More on December 31
© Alberto Mihai/Dreamstime.com
2019
The World Health Organization first learned of “viral pneumonia” cases in Wuhan, China. The disease was later determined to be COVID-19, which became a global pandemic the following year. [What was the impact of COVID-19?]
© Elwynn/Shutterstock.com
2004
Taipei 101 opened in Taipei, Taiwan. At 1,667 feet (508 metres), it was the tallest building in the world until the Burj Khalifa was completed in 2007. [Can you match the famous building to its city?]
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc./Kenny Chmielewski
1999
The United States officially handed over control of the Panama Canal to Panama. [Take our quiz about canals and straits.]
© mark reinstein/Shutterstock.com
1999
Russian President Boris Yeltsin resigned, and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin became acting president; Putin was elected to the post the following year. [Test your knowledge of Russian history.]
Tass/Sovfoto
1991
The Soviet Union legally ceased to exist, Russia and other former Soviet republics having declared themselves independent and having founded the Commonwealth of Independent States on December 21, 1991. [Sort fact from fiction in our quiz about Russia.]
UPI/Bettmann Archive
1972
Baseball great Roberto Clemente died in an airplane crash en route to Nicaragua with relief supplies collected for earthquake survivors. [See if Roberto Clemente made our list of the 10 greatest baseball players of all time.]
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.
1880
George C. Marshall, the U.S. Army chief of staff during World War II (1939–45), U.S secretary of state (1947–49) and of defense (1950–51), architect of the Marshall Plan for European recovery, and recipient of the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1953, was born in Uniontown, Pennsylvania. [Take our quiz about famous war personalities.]
The New York Public Library Digital Collection (483434)
1869
Henri Matisse, the artist often regarded as the most important French painter of the 20th century, was born. [Take our ultimate art quiz.]
© Metalrose/Dreamstime.com
1857
Queen Victoria named Ottawa the national capital of Canada. She was asked to make a selection after political quarrels among rival Canadian cities proved unresolvable. [How do countries typically choose their capital cities?]
Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
1775
American troops under General Richard Montgomery and Colonel Benedict Arnold were defeated by the British in the Battle of Quebec. [Test your knowledge of the American Revolution.]
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection (B1977.14.17466)
1600
The East India Company, formed for the exploitation of trade with East and Southeast Asia and India, was incorporated by English royal charter. [Watch: the rise and fall of the East India Company.]